JR Elsewhere

Archive for January, 2014

1. A Visit to Inner Mongolia

Lunar New Year’s eve is here, and old comrades get their visits from active cadres as every year. Meantime, Xi Jinping went to Inner Mongolia, braving the cold and having lunch with the guardians of the motherland’s borders.

CCTV’s Xinwen Lianbo had an epic tale of the tour last night (click picture for video).

As modest as Joe Biden: CCP secretary-general / state chairman / CMC chairman Xi Jinping has lunch with the warriors in Inner Mongolia

–

2. Local Press Coverage on Mass Line’s second Phase

Local media reported the beginning of the second phase of mass line education last week. “Holy Tibet”, a People’s Broadcasting Station (PBS / CPBS) broadcast in English, reported remarks by Liu Yunshan on Tuesday, exactly one week after they were made on January 21. The radio announcement is slightly different from this Xinhua (English) article, but its content is similar. Listen here. (Recording may be removed in a week.)

–

Yongzhou City government in southern Hunan Province republished on Monday an article by Yongzhou Daily.

In the morning of January 24, the first phase of the party’smass line education ended with a summary, and a video conference making arrangements for the second phase was held. The main task of the conference was to conscientiously study the implementation of the spirit of secretary-general Xi Jinping’s important speeches, and the spirit of the Central Committee’s meetings, to carry out a summary of the first phase of educational activities in our province, and to make arrangements for the second phase of educational activities. Tang Songcheng, Gao Jianhua, Tang Ding, Dong Shigui, Yi Jialiang, Jiang Shansheng, Zhu Yinghong, Shi Yanping, Zhang Hengzhou and other municipal leaders took part in the video conference from their homes [that’s what the article apparently says – ….. 张恒洲等在家的市级领导参加永州分会场会议].

The meeting pointed out that the effects and experiences needed to be conscientiously summarized, and the results of the first phase of educational practice be continiously consolidated and broadened. Ever since the first phase of educational practice activities had been started, the entire province, elders and the young, have closely connected to the theme of “for the people, practical work, honesty”, comprehensively implemented “looking into the mirror, dressing accurately, taking a bath, treating the illnesses”, emphasized leadership by example, adhered to open doors [to the cadres’ offices, for the public, apparently], boradened the masses’ participation, implemented strict requirements, showed the courage to face [tough issues of?] competition, and these activities have achieved first successes (取得了阶段性成果).

The meeting believed that doing a good job at the second-batch educational activities is an inevitable necessity for implementing the scientific development of the [Hunan] province, enriching the people and strengthening the province, whole-heartedness and cohesion; an inevitable necessity for accelerating the building of a service-oriented party organization and doing good mass work, the inevitable necessity for concentrated reflection on the solution of outstanding problems, for a yet closer relationship between the party and the masses, and for consolidating the fruits of the first phase of activities and ensuring the activities’ success from the beginning to the end. […]

3. Central-Level Mass-Line Meeting

The central-level conference for summarizing the first phase of mass line practice education and for arranging the second phase had taken place in Beijing, four days earlier. In a report on the same day – January 20 -, Xinhua newsagency reported that secretary-general, state chairman and central military commissions’ chairman Xi Jinping attended the meeting and delivered an important speech, summarizing the first phase of educational activities and making arrangements for the second phase.

He emphasized that ample use of the experiences from the first phase needed to be made, [the need for] staunch opposition against the “four winds” [i. e. undesirable working styles], to start with the issues that most concerned and pressed the masses, making efforts to solve problems of immediate concern to the interests of the masses, solving problems of bad work style (or malpractice) where this occured next to the people [this seems to target lower-rank cadres who are dirctly in touch with the public], implementing the results of improved work style at the grass roots, letting the masses enjoy the benefits and striving to achieving substantial results in the masses’ satisfaction.

Politburo standing committee members Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli attended the meeting, and central party mass line education practice activities group leader Liu Yunshan chaired the meeting. The meeting was carried out as a video and telephone conference, open to the county-level units and to the above-regiment units of the PLA and the armed police.

Xi Jinping, too, pointed out “first successes”, such as having put brakes on the spread of the four undesirable work styles (刹住了“四风”蔓延势头), and overall improvements in social atmosphere (社会风气整体好转). The masses fully identified [with the mass line], and assessments within and without the party had been positive.

Xi Jinping emphasized that the first phase of educational practise activities had achieved important results, mainly maintaining leadership by example by leading cadres, by maintaining open doors [see Yongzhou government quote], outstanding [or prominent] problem-orientation, making a start by rectifying problems, injecting momentum through rectifying problems, providing answers by rectifying problems, upholding standards, exercising strict control, continuously tightening the screws, tightening and winding up the clockwork, and making sure that the activities aren’t carried out only formally.

Xi was also quoted as saying that ideals and faith were the “calcium” of a communist’s spirit (理想信念是共产党人的精神之“钙”), and as emphasizing the value of criticism and self-criticism. He also re-iterated his (“maoist”) slogan of “looking into the mirror, dressing accurately, taking a bath, treating the illnesses”, as later repeated on provincial levels (see Yongzhou).

Xi Jinping emphasized that more attention needed to be paid to bringing the masses’ enthusiasm [or initiative, 积极性] into play. The second phase of education practise activities needed to develop at the doorsteps of the mass families. It is necessary that open-door activities are adhered to, that the participation and supervision of/by the masses is ensured at every link and every piece of work, that the judgment of the masses is asked for, that attitudes are sincere, that guidance is strengthened, that methods are paid attention to, and that the party’s correct becomes the conscious [or voluntary] action of the masses. […]

Members of the politburo, central committee secretariat, party members of the NPC and vice chairman (or vice chairpersons) of the NPC, members of the state council, the chairman of the supreme court,the head of the supreme procurate, CPPCC party members and deputy CPPCC vice chairman (or vice chairpersons) took part in the conference.

A number of organizations are also said to have attended, apparently to illustrate the remark about county-level (and military regimental) units. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, for example, attended the conference, too.

Hunan Province is striking hard at false media, false media organizations and false reporters, reports Rednet (Changsha, Hunan). The provincial authorities issued an order that work groups on eliminating pornography and illegal publications should carry out their work in the general public and at the grassroot units. The CPP mass line educational requirements is quoted as a basis for the crackdown on the “three falses” (三假) which reportedly started on January 4 and is scheduled to last until the end of March. It is said to be targeted at editorial offices, news bureaus and news websites or newslike websites (新闻类网站) that disturb the order of the press, negatively affect society and harmony. The report blames the “three falses” for rumormongering, hawking advertising space, blackmail (this seems to refer to issues like negative publicity, paid news, etc.

The stated goal of the operations is the building of a good public-opinion environment for society (营造良好的社会舆论环境).

The Chinese economy grew by 7.7 percent in 2013, 0.2 percent more than the central government’s target of 7.5 percent, but marking a 14-year low, according to the BBC. The story doesn’t explicitly say that there will be a further slowdown, but suggests that more growth would hardly be investment-led (as it was in the past), quoting an economist as saying that the government’s moves to curb shadow banking and local government debt will cap the growth of investment.

What may be rising further are “public-security” budgets. In November, party and state leader Xi Jinping had announced the establishment of a national security committee, and Chinese media were frank in announcements or interpretations right away. Tasks and challenges had become more complicated in the fields of national security, and the coordination and standardization (or unification, 协调和统一), innovative societal governance (社会治理), innovation of effective systems to defuse contradictions in society were needed, and it was easy to see that the new security committee needed to have both internal and external functions to react to both internal and external challenges.

A report by Central People’s Broadcasting Station System (CPBS, aka China National Radio) pointed out that processes like these were going on not only in China, but in the United States, Japan, France, and other countries, too. Not least, the report quoted Ruan Zongze (阮宗泽), a researcher and diplomat, the creation of a national security committee indicated the growing dynamics of Chinese diplomacy.

Such growing dynamics can certainly be visited in the German press. The home minister of the Free State of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, announced in a press release in March 2013 that China and Bavaria would cooperate yet more strongly in combatting international terrorism and drug trafficking. Herrmann issued the release after meeting Guo Shengkun, who had become minister for public security in December 2012, i. e. three months earlier.

Early this month, People’s Daily (online) published an article by Guo, which describes public-security work as safeguarding political security, security of state power, issues that relate to the ruling position of the party (事关党的执政地位) as well as national core interests mattered in Guo’s article, emphasizing several times that his position was based on prior speeches of party secretary general Xi Jinping, which indicated the party’s new height in understanding of how to maintain national security and social stability (我们党对维护国家安全和社会稳定规律特点的认识达到了一个新高度).

Guo’s article mentioned lots of ideological ingredients for these new heights of insight, but little or no recognizable threats. It doesn’t seem far-fetched however that incidents like these are among those on Guo’s mind.

Sina Weibo, according to reports, is losing users – the BBC links the decline to a crackdown on “online rumors”. It remains to be seen if innovation will come from Chinese media – “social” or other. Earlier this month, in a review of China’s media landscape of 2013, or China’s political discourse in 2013, Qian Gang, a contributor to the China Media Project, found a trend which in his view, went from some kind of constitutionalism to the two must not rejects. The two must not speaks as a term

summed up a new political position emerging from the Party leadership, that “the historical period after economic reforms [in 1978] must not be used to reject the historical period before economic reforms; and the historical period before economic reforms must not be used to reject the historical period after economic reforms.”

A number of terms in the media were checked by Qian, suggesting that terms associated with constitutionalism and democracy were reaching new lows. And while Qian considers the term “Chinese Dream” mainly motivational, he believes that media reference to “Mao Zedong’s Thought” is a measuring stick that can be used to look at Chinese politics.

1) apparent blackout at about 02:40 GMT.2) Only on December 24, from 19:00 – 21:00 GMT. Special Christmas broadcast. Also on a number of other shortwave frequencies, from 19:00 – 21:00 / 21:00 – 23:00 GMT respectively.